Roasted chipotle sprouts

First of all, I would like to apologise to anyone who read this post in it's half completed state. I'm going to blame my error of hitting the "Publish" button rather than "Preview" on post earthquake jitters! Needless to say I was rather embarrassed about releasing an incomplete post. Oh well, it's a reminder that accidents happen and we all make mistakes from time to time. ;-) 

We had a mix match Mexican inspired dinner last Friday night. I wanted to use up the rest of Cadry's black beans in soft tacos but there were only enough beans for a single taco each. I thought about my available ingredients for a while and came up with the following simple solution - spicy roasted vegetables. It had been a while since I made a batch of my Mexe wedges so they were definitely going to be in and I also recalled how delicious the chipotle carrots chips from where's the beef had been when I had tried them recently.

On this night I really felt like eating some greens so instead of carrots I decided to test the recipe out with brussel sprouts. I've enjoyed smoky sprouts before and spicy ones shredded into stir frys although I've never combined these two wonderful flavours with sprouts. Another bonus of using sprouts was the shortened cooking time as they take less time to roast than carrots.


It's a very simple recipe to prepare, after prepping your veggies it's just a matter of mixing through some finely chopped chipotle chillies in adobo sauce along with a bit of oil and salt before roasting in the oven. I used 2 chipotle chillies which gave the sprouts a decent amount of heat and added a bit of lime juice to the mix this time as I had been squeezing limes for guacamole and had a little bit of juice leftover. It's difficult to pick a favourite of these two vegetables roasted in this tasty blend as they are both unique in their own way. This is a different way to prepare roasted vegetables and they pair well with any Mexican themed meal, especially in cold weather when salad items aren't as appetising.

Before I leave you with the recipe, Kari of Bite-sized thoughts kindly nominated me for the Food Stories Award for Excellence in Storytelling. Many thanks Kari! I feel honoured to receive this award and am even more excited to hand it out to others who I believe are better storytellers than myself. The bloggers I would like to nominate are:

• Cadry - Cadry's Kitchen
• Joey - Flicking the Vs
• Johanna - Green Gourmet Giraffe
• Jojo - Vegan in Brighton
• Theresa - The Tropical Vegan 

The Food Stories Award requires the recipient to share a random fact about themselves as well as passing the award onto 5 other bloggers. Here is my fact.

I don't wear any make-up at all and have never used moisturisers, hand lotions, etc. There was a stage in my late teens when I did wear make-up and I have popped a little bit on for an occasion like a wedding but I don't enjoy the heavy fake feel of it. I'm sure my skin is thankful for this and the other bonus was that I didn't need to consider product changes when transitioning to a vegan lifestyle.

Roasted chipotle sprouts (Adapted from where's the beef, originally from Tofu for Two)

500g brussell sprouts
1-2 chipotle chillies in adobo sauce, finely chopped
1 tablespoon olive oil
¼-½ teaspoon salt
1-2 tablespoons lime juice (optional)

Preheat oven to 200C.

Trim the sprouts of their outer leaves and cut into halves. Place the sprouts in a bowl, toss the rest of the ingredients over the top and use your hands to coat the sprouts in the mixture evenly.

Bake in the oven on a roasting tray lined with baking paper for 20 minutes, flipping the sprouts after about 10 minutes.

No butter, no chicken

Several years ago, my office was located in the city which meant commuting on a daily basis and getting home late in the evenings. A meal (or two) was usually prepared during the weekend and other weeknight meals were quick and simple to prepare. Once a week the man used to lend a hand in the kitchen. More often than not, butter chicken was the meal he chose to make. 

A special recipe was given to him by an Indian colleague he used to work with. He was a lovely guy who was more than happy to share his knowledge of Indian food and seemed almost humbled that we were so interested in the cuisine of his country of origin. He warned that his butter chicken recipe is not comparable with the mild version that is served up in Indian restaurants to westerners, instead it's a spicier, more traditional recipe.

We used to feast on butter chicken on an almost weekly basis and although it was technically my night off cooking, I began trying out different Indian vegetable-based recipes as our side dish. This catalog of vegie curries served with a multitude of dal recipes helped me through our early days of vegetarianism. Butter chicken was initially sorely missed, although as time passed so did the urge to consume our old favourite.  

Mock meat is something I don't cook with often as there is such a wide variety of more nutritional foods out there, however, I do quite enjoy it now and then as an occasional treat. There had been a bag of soy nuggets hiding away in the freezer for a long time and I had plans to make a "butter chicken" the moment they were purchased. I decided that it would be a great time to put them to use on the man's birthday eve as he would be able to enjoy a delicious birthday lunch of leftovers at work. 

The only problem I encountered was that the recipe was nowhere to be found! Luckily I do have quite a good memory bank for recipes that have been made several times. After consulting with the man, we were fairly confident that we had the spices nailed. A couple of other tweaks here and there were required to replace the dairy products that were once a part of it.

The "butter chicken" turned out just as delicious as we all remembered, although no chickens or cows were harmed in the making. We enjoyed this curry with punjabi sprouts which was a replica of this punjabi cabbage recipe using brussel sprouts instead. Although the man loved his birthday Mexican dinner and cake, it was the "butter chicken" left-overs that really made his gastronomic day.  

"Butter Chicken" (Adapted from Shohil's recipe)

1 onion, chopped roughly

4 cloves garlic, chopped roughly

2 cm knob ginger, chopped roughly

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 cinnamon sticks

6 cloves

8 cardamon pods

2 heaped teaspoons ground coriander

2 heaped teaspoons ground cumin

2 heaped teaspoons garam masala

1 teaspoon turmeric

1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon chilli powder

1/4 teaspoon saffron powder

400ml tomato passata

1/2 cup ground almonds/almond mill

1 1/2 cups water

600g packet Lamyong soy nuggets (almost fully defrosted)

1/2 cup soy milk

2 tablespoons tofutti cream cheese

2 tablespoons dairy-free margarine

Place the onions, garlic and ginger into a blender with a couple of tablespoons of water and process until a smooth paste is achieved.

Heat the olive oil in a large pot and fry the cinnamon sticks, cardamon pods and cloves until fragrant. Add the onion, garlic & ginger paste and cook for about 5 minutes over medium heat. Stir through the coriander, cumin, garam masala, turmeric, salt, chilli and saffron powder and cook for another minute.

Add the tomato passata and then the ground almonds and mix until thoroughly combined. Pour in the water, bring to the boil then reduce the heat to simmer. Add the soy nuggets, cover the pot and cook for 5-10 minutes until the soy nuggets are cooked through.

Stir through the soy milk, tofutti cream cheese and dairy-free margarine. When the tofutti and margarine have dissolved into the gravy, turn off the heat and serve. 

Spicy Chow Mein

After reading Johanna's post about Chow Mein recently, I felt seriously deprived. It was something that I had never eaten in my life before and sounded so simple yet delicious. I needed to try it - sooner rather than later!

It seemed like a pretty easy meal to throw together, and any meal that only uses one pot is always a bonus as it means less dishes to do. As well as changing things around to suit the vegetables that were available, I also substituted rice vermicelli for the spaghetti, TVP for the nut roast and used Massel "chicken" stock in an attempt to recreate some of the flavour of a chicken noodle soup packet. A couple of chillies were thrown in for some heat, however some curry powder would have been added as well if I had taken note of it in the old recipe half-way through Johanna's post.

Dinner was very popular as everyone enjoyed the chow mein immensely. The chillies added a decent amount of heat although they were not overpowering and the "chicken" stock brought a nice salty taste to the meal. TVP is something I don't use often and haven't been overly impressed with in the past. Having said that, I quite enjoyed it in the chow mein. Perhaps it wasn't as dominant as it has been in other dishes where I have used it in the past.

Although most meals don't get repeated around here these days (as I am nearly always trying something new), chow mein should get another look in when time is short and vegies are plentiful... 

Spicy Chow Mein (Adapted from Johanna's recipe)

100g rice vermicelli
1 cup TVP granules
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, crushed
2 bird-eye chillies, finely sliced
2 portobello mushrooms, diced
1-2 tablespoons soy sauce
4 cups of Massel "chicken" stock
1/2 cup basmati rice
8 brussel sprouts, shredded
2 small carrots, julienned
1 red capsicum, cut into thin strips
150g green beans, chopped into bite sized pieces

Place the rice vermicelli noodles in a heat-proof bowl and cover with boiling water. After 15 minutes drain well, return the noodles to the bowl and chop roughly with a knife (I find this method easier than cutting dry noodles which fly around everywhere and make a huge mess).

Place the TVP in a heat-proof bowl and cover with boiling water. Drain excess water after 10 minutes.

Heat olive oil in an large pot. Fry the onion for 5 minutes until softened. Add the garlic and chilli and saute for about a minute then add the mushrooms. Cook, stirring occasionally until the mushrooms begin to soften.

Add soy sauce, stock and rice to the pot.  Bring to the boil and simmer, covered for about 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, stir through the brussel sprouts, carrots, capsicum and beans and simmer for another 5-10 minutes until the vegetables are soft.

Stir through the rice vermicelli and re-hydrated TVP, allow to heat through and then serve.

VOTM - Brussel Sprouts

I decided to do a write up on a different vegetable every month and share a few ways I like to enjoy them. So from now when you see the VOTM prefix on a post that is my acronym for Vegetable Of The Month. And to get the ball rolling, my first post will feature brussel sprouts.

Brussel sprouts are something that I ate a few times as a child, they were always boiled to within an inch of their life and I never enjoyed them. In fact, none of my siblings liked them so mum stopped trying to make us eat them after a while. My husband was keen for me to cook sprouts a while ago and when I finally did, no effort was put into finding out different ways to prepare them. They were served the only way I knew and not surprisingly, I still didn't like them.

It wasn't until last year that I began to experiment with cooking sprouts in different ways. I evolved from a sprout hater to a sprout lover overnight! Roasting was one of the first methods I enjoyed, then I moved on to steaming sprout halves with chopped carrots and finishing them off with a light fry in nuttelex and toasted almonds.

More recently, sprouts have been enjoyed in shredded form. This began last year when I tried the Vegan Yum Yum stir-fry recipe for Seven Spice Udon. Appetite for Reduction has a recipe called Shaved Brussel Sprouts which is essentially onion, garlic and shredded sprouts seasoned with salt and pepper - which is a component of the last picture in my nut roast post. For my last Viva Vegan meal - Brazilian Black Bean Stew, I changed this side dish by ditching the onion and adding in some smoked paprika which turned out superbly - recipe below.

Whilst writing up this post, I flicked back through photos that haven't been posted to see if I could dig up any more sprout shots. The below meal was something I threw together in a hurry one night, using up left over vegies and totally not expecting it to be anything special. I actually didn't take a photo the first time around and because it was so good I tried to make it again the next week. I'm not sure why I didn't get around to posting about it and wouldn't be able to give you a recipe from looking at it. I'll have to make it again some day so it can be shared.      

Brussel sprouts are something that I really enjoy experimenting with and eating these days. Not so long ago I would have shied away from recipes that included them. Now I am always on the hunt for different ways to use them!

Shredded smoky sprouts (Adapted from Appetite for Reduction)

Olive oil spray
3 cloves garlic, sliced thinly
10 brussel sprouts
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
salt and pepper, to taste

To prepare the sprouts, slice off knobbly end off the bottom and remove the outer leaves. Cut each sprout in half and then slice into strips.

Spray a large non-stick frying pan with olive oil spray and heat on a medium flame. Cook the garlic for about 30 seconds, then add the sprouts, smoked paprika, salt and pepper. Fry for about 7 minutes, until the leaves become brown and crispy.